


A Linear Progression of Permanence

by sgt_fuckybarnes



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Implied HTP, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Minor Hydra Trash Party, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Past Brainwashing, Slight Mention of Rape, Tattoos, Tattoos as therapy, htp mention, implied stucky - Freeform, mention of violence, outsider pov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 17:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18974707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgt_fuckybarnes/pseuds/sgt_fuckybarnes
Summary: In the Second World War, it was common for soldiers to get tattoos, either depicting or symbolizing their experiences overseas, or as a reminder of what was waiting for them at home. Bucky takes this idea and runs with it, turning a weapon into a work of art in several stages, with some help along the way.(Or- A detailed history of Bucky's tattoos, as told by outsiders)





	1. S

**Author's Note:**

> I've been reading recently about how various people use tattoos to heal from trauma, particularly to cover up scars or document past experiences, while claiming ownership of their bodies. I thought Bucky is a guy who could really use some ownership of his body, and I think tattoos would serve as a kind of 'reminder' for him, a way to permanently possess his once-lost memories.

Rumlow was used to the Asset’s body. He’d seen it almost every day since ‘91, laid bare by a lack of clothing and shame associated with something not quite human. He knew

its ins and outs, how it moved and worked. How it tilted slightly to the left, giving in to the intense weight of its metal appendage, how it twitched and shook in the machine, 

fingers jerking in either an effort to escape or a simple expression of pain. He knew every nook and cranny, every mark and wound, better than the thing knew itself. Had you

asked Brock a mere day ago if the Asset had a tattoo on its right wrist, he would have balked at the idea. From his understanding, the Asset had been around for a long time,

longer than hipster kids had been getting tacky infinity symbols and type-lettered initials on the hollow of their wrists, but shit- there it was. Faded, of course. More faded than

the tally marks the Asset bore on its chest, a kill count left over from the Russians. The thing was barely visible, going soft grey and green under the harsh lighting of the

underground base.

 

But.

 

But Brock could still see it, still make it out. It was clearly a tattoo, clearly a conscious permanent mark on its skin. Smaller than a quarter, blending in with the blue green veins 

popping from its wrist was the letter S.

 

“Which one of you assholes did this?” Brock snapped at the tech agents attending to the Asset’s wounds. There was no doubt in his mind it was them, of course. They were 

fiercely possessive of their creation, for a bunch of repressed pencil pushers.

 

“Did what?” One agent asked, popping up from his previous position of re-setting the shattered bones in the Soldier’s foot.

 

“The S. The tattoo. Which one of you  _ fucking _ assholes tattooed your initial on its wrist?” Brock demanded. The agent- Westerfahl, Brock thought, peered intently at the Asset’s right wrist.

 

“Huh.” he said, after a moment.

 

“Huh? Fucking huh?” Rumlow repeated, voice dangerous and low. “What the fuck do you mean, ‘huh’? One of you assholes did this?! How did I not notice it?”

 

“W-well, it’s an old tattoo Commander, it could be leftover from Soviet possessio-

 

“You think the Soviets ‘possessed’ the Asset like we do, Westerfahl? Nah, this was one of us.”

 

“Sir, I don’t think-”

 

“Shut the fuck up, Westerfahl.” another tech hissed, elbowing the young agent in the stomach to cut him off. Brock nodded to her in approval, and she returned it briefly.

 

“Do you want it off, Sir?” Westerfahl offered meekly.

 

“What?”

 

“Well, the thing looks about fifty years old, I bet if we applied a laser it would take care of it pretty quick.”

 

Brock tilted his head to the side, studying the silent Asset for a moment. Its eyes were glassy, brow furrowed just slightly at the pain of having his bones rebroken. Brock highly

doubted, should the perpetrator of the ink of its skin turn to reclaim it, that the Asset would even understand what was happening. Would even remember the sorry son of a 

bitch who went and wrote his initial on its skin in an attempt to possess this wild, empty thing.

 

“Nah. It can stay for now.” He said, dropping the Asset’s limp wrist. This got the Asset’s attention, its gaze dropped to the arm in its lap.

 

“Hey, Soldat.” Brock snapped. The Asset’s eyes raised in attention. “Do you know who gave this to you?” he asked, pointing to the S on its wrist. The Asset seemed to 

contemplate the question.

 

“A drunk.” the thing said decisively. Rumlow exchanged looks with the female agent on the floor.

 

“Fucking great.” he muttered. “Westerfahl, get it into the fucking chair. I’ll see if I can’t remove it for him.” Brock said. His hand twitched towards the hunting knife at his belt, and Brock smiled.

 

Maybe if this all worked out, he’d put an R on the thing. 

  
  



	2. Хороший чудовище

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record: I've never been tattooed in my life, I've just heard a lot about it from other sources, so if I got it totally wrong and this isn't how it's done at all then I am VERY sorry and it's all my fault!!

     

There were a metric fuckton of tattoo parlors in Brooklyn. A million gentrified hipster shops in DUMBO alone for 20 year old white girls to get dream catchers tattooed on their thighs, for drunk assholes to demand a penis tat from a girl behind the desk gripping her tattoo gun a little too tight. Ian’s shop, in contrast, was not for weirdos. The place had been open since the dark ages, run by his grandfather first, and then his father. In the three years the shop had fallen to Ian, he found most of the customers at Sergeant Ink to be perfectly pleasant, usually well-meaning old vets who’d been on the force with his grandpa, or less well-meaning drunks who’d been arrested by his grandpa, only to wind up bonding with the old cop. 

The man hovering in the doorway of Ian’s shop, however, was a weirdo. The man was pale, his cheeks sunken in and his eyes lined with bags so dark Ian would have sworn hand-to-god he’d been punched twice in the face. Ian looked up, giving the man an awkward two-fingered wave. The shop was relatively empty, this early, just Ian and another tattooist in back, working dedicatedly on a full back piece. With no receptionist in yet, Ian was forced to get up from where he was setting up his station, and greet the man at the desk. 

“Welcome to Sergeant Ink, what can I do for you?”

His customer service voice sounded fake to his own ears, and he cringed internally. 

“Sergeant?” the man repeated, brow furrowed. 

“My grandpa was a cop, before he founded this place. A sergeant.” Ian said, shrugging a little. Sure, the name hardly made sense now that a graphic design major was in charge of the place, but he doubted his father would take too kindly to him changing it. 

“Not military?” the pale man asked, his greasy hair falling into his eyes as he looked up. Ian shook his head. 

“Nope. Dad was in the Marines, though. In Iraq.” he offered. The stranger’s lip twitched, but it was not quite a smile. 

“Jarhead.” he said, almost reverently. Ian smiled. Military. Okay, this he could deal with. The guy was probably just having some sort of PTSD episode. He certainly had that ‘thousand-yard stare’ his dad always talked about. 

“So what can I do for you, pal?”

The man looked startled at the nickname, but he didn’t protest. 

“I...uh. Saw your letters. I mean, the lettering. I was wondering if you could do it in Cyrillic.” He said. The man’s gloved hands were twisting nervously at the bottom of his jacket. 

“No clue.” Ian said cheerfully. He had a vague idea of what Cyrillic was, recognized the name for the Russian alphabet, but he’d never tried to tattoo it before. “I don’t speak it, or read it but...as long as you made sure the spelling is right, and I make a nice stencil, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

The man considered this for a moment, and then nodded. 

“Do you know what you want it to say?” Ian asked. He tried to make his voice sound gentle, but he was afraid he just came across as condescending. The pale man didn’t seem to notice. 

“ Хороший  чудовище.” The man said. Ian blinked. 

“Okay, you’re gonna have to write that down for me.” He said. The man grabbed a pen from the desk, and snatched Ian’s sign in sheet. Before he could protest, the pale man had flipped it over and begun to write in bold, foreign script. 

Х о р о ш и й     ч у д о в и щ е

Ian nodded, studying the words carefully. “You know, my next appointment isn’t for like three hours, depending on how big you want this sucker I could do it right now.” he offered. The pale man might have smiled, but it was such a minute movement that Ian wasn’t sure. 

“Here.” The man said, indicating to his left breastbone above his heart. “This big.” The man held his thumb and index finger apart to indicate the length of the script. It wasn’t too big, probably something Ian could do in under three hours, if the man didn’t need too many breaks. 

“Alright.” Ian said. “I could draw you up a stencil right now. I just need a name to go in the schedule, and some ID.” he said

The pale man swallowed, and for a second Ian thought he was going to run. He seemed to calm, however, and pulled a battered looking passport from his pocket (who the hell carries a passport in their pocket?), setting it on the counter. 

The passport claimed the man was Yasha Sobokin, a Russian national born in 1984. It explained the Cyrillic script, anyways. Ian glanced at the picture, and then back at the man. It was certainly him, although the picture looked about a hundred years old- quite literally. It was of a terrible grainy quality, and the man’s eyes looked perhaps even more unfocused than they did now. 

Ian gave a brief nod, and jotted Yasha’s name down on the sign in sheet, before taking it back from its place to stare at the reference image of the Russian wording. 

“I can have a stencil done in like 20 minutes, if you wanna just chill here.” Ian offered. The Russian cocked his head.   
“Chill?” he repeated. Despite his lack of accent, it occured to Ian that he might not understand a ton of English idioms. 

“Uh, just sit here. Wait until I’m done drawing.” he explained awkwardly. Yasha nodded. Ian retreated to a back room of the shop to draw out the letters, his mouth twisted into a concentrated frown as he focused on the linework. 

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he emerged back into the main shop, but from Yasha’s expression it hadn’t been obnoxiously long. Ian gave him a smile. 

“Alright, I’m ready for you. We can go to the back, if you don’t want your shirt off in the main shop, or we can do it at my normal station right there.” he said, pointing behind him. Yasha grew pale. 

“I’ve got to have my shirt off?” he asked, his voice hoarse. 

“Well, unless you want me to cut a hole in your shirt.” Ian joked uncomfortably. 

“I’d prefer that.” he said darkly. Ian was drawing a blank. 

“I...I kind of have to take your shirt off, man. If you’re uncomfortable, we can go the back room, and I promise not to take any of your other clothes off.” Ian said, trying to lighten the mood. Yasha looked Ian up and down for a moment. 

“I’d prefer that, too.”

Ian coughed to smother a laugh. 

“How about this…”, he offered, “You take your shirt off, but you keep your jacket on. You can close the jacket if you get uncomfortable and need to stop, and I’ll still be able to tattoo you.”

“Could I keep my gloves on too?” Yasha asked.

“Sure.”

The Russian broke into the first real smile Ian had seen from him. 

“Deal.” 

Yasha opted to sit in the front of the shop, his toned chest on display as Ian laid the stencil. As he got further left, Yasha’s chest became a mess of gnarled scarring, seemingly concentrated around the left shoulder. He didn’t seem to react any differently to it being touched, but Ian knew that scarred area might be more painful to deal with once he was actually tattooing. 

“Have you had a tattoo before?” he asked, pulling away the stencil to reveal fresh lines of purple on Yasha’s skin. The man shook his head, his long hair falling further into his eyes at the action. 

Ian paused for a moment. “Seriously?” he asked. Yasha looked up to meet his eyes, confused. “A breastbone tattoo, over scar tissue, for your first one? Are you sure you can handle it?” he asked. Yasha simply blinked at him, looking almost bored. 

“...Alright.” he muttered, readying the tattoo gun. Yasha smirked a little. 

True to his earlier point, Yasha didn’t flinch once while being tattooed. He didn’t ask for a break, he didn’t even make a noise. If it weren’t for the steady rise and fall of his chest Ian might have thought that he was dead. 

The tattoo was simple, when it came down to it, just small black lettering.  Хороший  чудовище. 

“What does it mean?” Ian asked, as he finished inking in the foreign symbols. Yasha shrugged his right shoulder, keeping the left perfectly still for Ian to work on. 

“It’s a reminder.” Yasha said quietly. “Of...what I can be. Or what I should be, maybe. Just a reminder.” 

Ian arched an eyebrow, wiping droplets of blood from the newly formed tattoo. 

“Well whatever it is, it’s done. You did good.” He said. Yasha nodded, waiting only a moment after Ian placed the bandage on top to zip his jacket up the neck. “Come over to the desk, I’ll give you some instructions for how to heal it, and you can pay.” he said, helping Yasha from the chair. He nodded absentmindedly. 

“How much?” Yasha asked, fishing into his pocket. He pulled out a wad of hundred dollar bills that made Ian’s eyes pop an inch out of his skull. 

“Uh, I was just gonna charge you one hundred even, where did you get all this…?”

“D.C.” he said vaguely. Ian didn’t press further as Yasha handed him two crumpled hundred dollar bills. 

“Keep the change.” Yasha said. He grabbed his shirt off the floor and collected the pamphlet Ian offered him on tattoo care, moving to leave the shop. 

“Wait!” Ian called after him. Yasha turned, his head cocked to the side. “Please tell me what the tattoo says.”

Yasha made a huffing noise that could have been a laugh. “ Хороший  чудовище. A good monster.” he said. With that, he turned and walked away. 

A few weeks later, Ian got a postcard delivered to his apartment above the shop, the return address listing somewhere in Romania. There was no greeting, no writing except for one word:  Спасибо. 

Ian didn’t need it translated. 

  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> (Youtube Voice) And don't forget to like and subscribe at the end of this fanfiction! I'm @trashofthething on twitter, if you're bitter about Endgame and like screaming.


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